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Estimate or contract? Don't sign if you are not sure

Getting an estimate for work? Make sure you know the difference between an estimate and a binding contract

Deb Schubert needed some trees trimmed, so she invited a trimmer to her home for a quick estimate.

"He took a look at the property, the amount of trees we wanted to cut down," she said. "At this point were just searching for estimates."

She thought nothing of it when the contractor asked her to sign the price quote.

"He wrote out the estimate, asked me to sign it, we did, we got a copy of it, and he took off," she said.

But when Schubert told him a few days later she was going with another company, she couldn't believe what the trimmer said.

"What we had signed was actually a binding contract. He said If we wanted to cancel it we were required to pay them a 20 percent cancellation fee."

The contractor wanted several hundred dollars.

How to protect yourself

The good news is that most tree trimming companies are honest and are not going to play fast with words. But this is a warning why you need to be very careful anytime someone asks you to sign your name. Estimates should not require it.